Heritage Auction Questions

1585/0 0/0+ means 1585 have been graded at that grade, with no grades higher and the 0/0+ means there are also no coins with a plus on them, such as MS-65+, which would be the in-between step between two grades.

For most of Heritages auctions they allow you to bid up to the beginning of the auction by placing your maximum bid. If you do not bid again then anyone participating in the actual bidding can outbid you and there is nothing you can do unless you are ALSO standing by (on the computer) to increase your bid too.

In other words, once the auction starts, anyone can still bid as each lot comes to the table. You can do so on the computer, and it's very easy. It actually works, too. If you want to place your bid every 2 seconds, it allows for that, and there are some seconds when the warning is given before the lot actually closes.

There's really three ways to bid.

Before the auction (closing 1 hour before) you can bid on line.

You can bid through Heritage (online, mail, phone, fax) as Andrew said and HA will execute your bid increment by increment.

You can also bid live (floor, phone and internet) on the auction.

When the auction starts, you will see the bids displayed increment by increment until they get to the highest pre-bid of any type. The source will be listed in parens.

Then it goes to the floor/internet/phone live bids.

So for example, I put a bid in for $350. When the auction started you could see the $10 increments up to $370 which was the highest pre-bid. I got outbid.

Then the live bids rolled until the lot closed.

Many lots attract no floor bids, so the pre-bids roll, a pause and then the lot closes.